Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
Peter has it all. He is forging a successful career as a barrister, and is now thinking about moving in with his beautiful girlfriend, Jenny. But Peter has a secret, hidden life, which is revealed when his computer unexpectedly sends out an email to everyone in his address book, from his dad to the head of his chambers, with an attachment that no-one can bear to look at. What happens when someone you think you know has a secret life and desires you were oblivious to?
Future Me explores murky territory. Taking its name from a treatment programme for sex-offenders which forces them confront to a non-abusing ‘future me’, the play takes a gripping and compelling look at paedophilia. Writer Stephen Brown shows us that there are questions that need to be asked; that in a society where the media seems to be quite obsessed with the despicable behaviour of paedophiles, we need to enquire what is actually going on behind those headlines.
Future Me takes a thought-provoking look at the internet and the idea that the fulfilment of our desires could be only a mouse-click away. It probes the seedy, virtual world of pornography and how it distorts our relationships in the real world. The play raises the idea that there is a far thinner line than one would think between our private fantasies and our public behaviour and tests our capacity for forgiveness.
Indeed, the play is a sharp and intellectual investigation of paedophilia. However, this didn’t detract from the fact that it was still painful and disturbing to sit through. Future Me did take a clear moral line, emphasising the appalling behaviour of Peter and his fellow prison inmates. But for me, there was not a satisfactory balance between a focus on the perpetrators and then on the victims of such atrocious crimes. There was also an unsettling lack of anger and horror towards such people and what they do. I felt that we had not gotten to know the characters as well as we needed to in such a intense story-line.
Having said this, the play was extremely well-acted. Robyn Issac’s portrayal of Jenny offered us some much needed confusion and anger. She gave some commanding and moving scenes in which a woman is struggling to reconcile the boyfriend she knew with the monster she now sees before her in his prison cell. Rupert Hill gave a thought-provoking performance as Peter, desperately trying to make us believe that he is more than his appalling crime. How convincing this idea was, however, I am not so sure.
Surprisingly, Future Me is peppered with some humorous moments, notably from Tom Newman’s Harry, who became remarkably endearing for a sex-offender and made sure we didn’t get too ground down in the gloom and despair of the play.
Once Future Me has finished its Spring Tour, it will be going into secure hospitals, and the themes in the play will be explored through workshops with patient groups including sex-offenders. This is a testimony of Brown’s depiction of those affected by sex-offenders, from brothers and girlfriends to probation officers and psychiatrists. Future Me was a well-structured and fearless drama, which allowed a thoughtfulness I was not expecting or at times comfortable with.
Future Me is at the York Theatre Royal from Thursday 12 - Saturday 14th March. Tickets are available from the Box Office on 01904 623568 or from the York Theatre Royal website.
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